So my group killed the staglord in a total 0 rounds of combat.
We spiked his alcohol with enough arsenic to drop a horse and delivered it dressed as bandits with Kressle to speak for us. Start smoozing and trying to feel out which bandits are irrideemable/need to "disappear" Akiros comes out saying the stag lord is dead.
Post your stag lord kills here.
The party i run disguised and bluffed there way into stag lords fort with his special liquor and casks of beer for the rest of the fort. They decided to show at the fort close to sunset so it would be easier to talk there way into staying for the night. most of the party engaged in dinner with the bandits telling tales of renegade so called hero's they had slain to get the staglords stash back. i didn't make them make another bluff check since the guards began to get drunk and it was at this point icing on the cake and rubbing it there faces. The party dwarf even engaged Ocks into a drinking contest. Once many of the guards were engaged in there festivities and relaxed the rogue snuck off, downed and a potion of invisibility to explore the fort and found the staglord in bed passed out. Coup De grace and done.
At first i wasn't sure a coup de grace would get pulled off but an invisible rogue seems to make it WAY too easy to pull when passed out, i had to reread the rules a few times. Was kind of disappointed but what can you do?...
the way it worked out it was actually one of there easiest encounters at that point :(
Party of 4 level 4th characters.
Human Cleric of Iomidae
Human Rogue (dex-based TWF)
Gnome Summoner
Human Ranger (switch hitter) (Me)
We made a very good plan, we made 2 or 3 contigency plans, we had the alcohol, we had converted the chick bandit, we had scrolls of disguise, dust of dissapearance, we found the entry that was guarded by undead, we had the invisible eidolon scout the fort, we had poisoned the staglord's drinks, we had bandit outfits, we had the staglord's jewel's (rings, amulets etc.). And all those were for nothing because of what happened:
1)We wait till nightfall.
2)Invisible rogue inflitrates the fort and at his first stealth roll he rolls a natural 20 (the coule more roll he did followed the same results)
3)The rest of the party charges the front gate.
4)Rogue opens the gate for the party and hides himself.
5)The 3 "elite" banditis come to the gate.
6)Rogue saps with sneak attack the one we needed alive (the quest).
7)Ranger kills the other 2 in one attack with his bow.
8)All of the party except the summoner and the eidolon charge to the bandits and the released owlbear.
9)Party is fighting bandits and owlbear. While summoner takes the sideway to the back of the fort.
10)Party keeps fighting. Summoner encounters the 3 sub-comanders of Staglord. Akiros seeing all of that turns against the other two.
11) Party keeps fighting (really crappy roll for the ranger). Eidolon one shots the ugly bandit, Staglord attacks Akiros from his room, Akiros rages and attacks the rogue bandit.
12)Party keeps fighting (really crappy roll for the ranger continue), summoner and eidolon rush to the barbarian's aid and eidolon one shots the rogue bandit.
13)Party keeps fighting (i think you can guess what keeps happening to the ranger's rolls). Summoner, Eidolon and Akiros charge Staglord. Next round Akiros attacks Staglord, Eidolon full attacks Staglord and the gnome summoner acid splash him for 3 damage and defeats him.
The 4 we defeated when we were 3rd level was a much more better battle.
Well unless your GM made some modifications to make it tougher, your party was one level too high for the fight...
We were supposed to go at 3rd level?
The last sentence of my previous post should read:
The 4 trolls we defeated when we were 3rd level was a much more better battle.
Flushed with level 3 awesomeness, my party headed straight for the fort. Their nightime assault ended in them fleeing like girls from the zombies. Their second, sneak attack, was foiled by the fighter yelling his battle cry, and led to a pretty bloody fight at the gate.
They'd taken out the bandits, the owlbear, and Auchs (well the owlbear did for Auchs), and had just used their last CLW when the Stag Lord made his appearance, using Insightful Shot to put down the rogue.
They dithered and were about to flee, when the Bard/Pally decided on a heroic last assault. The two remaining PCs backed him up, and in a string of 1's from the Stag Lord, and a couple of criticals from the PC's he went down.
Of course, they then decided to rest up without bothering to locate the cellar and the scary spellcaster they KNEW was there.
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Our party whor...er, priestess of Calistria, with her level 2 bluff skill somewhere north of 18 and a diplomacy somewhere in that same region, decided to slink into the fort with nothing but a sultry look and a message spell, courtesy the party wizard.
After the "do" was done, she promptly stabbed the crap out of his drunken, exhausted, and most importantly helpless form.
After that the rest of the party and Akiros cleaned house, sparing only Ox (bug doofy guy with the toys).
Our party whor...er, priestess of Calistria, with her level 2 bluff skill somewhere north of 18 and a diplomacy somewhere in that same region, decided to slink into the fort with nothing but a sultry look and a message spell, courtesy the party wizard.
After the "do" was done, she promptly stabbed the crap out of his drunken, exhausted, and most importantly helpless form.
After that the rest of the party and Akiros cleaned house, sparing only Ox (bug doofy guy with the toys).
Auchs, of all people?
Oh well. NPCs in my game don't turn out the way the book implies they should either.
I was tired of my players being too cautious, so I had the Dovan mount an assault on Oleg's while Svetlana, Kesten, Jhod, and two other NPCs I'd introduced were away. Dovan and his bandits took on Oleg, three soldiers from Brevoy, and a couple of redeemed bandits who were helping out around Oleg's. The bandits managed to kill everyone except Oleg, who they left handless. They then strung all the bodies up over the entrance to the compound and set fire to some new structures the PCs and NPCs had been building.
My party arrived at Oleg's the day after a tornado had whipped through the hills and plains around Oleg's. They had seeked refuge in the forest in some low-lying areas. and watched the tornado head off toward the northwest (as they often do). They spotted the smoke from Oleg's and quickened their pace. They then spotted the bodies, and one of the player's who had a love interest in one of the NPCs took off toward Oleg's.
Only Jhod (returned from the temple of the elk and stabilized Oleg) and Oleg were there. They forced Oleg awake and made him tell them where everyone was because they couldn't find bodies. Oleg says they went to Bokken's for potions. They sigh in relief until they realize a tornado was headed to the northwest just yesterday. They take off in the late evening, lame a couple of horses, and get to Bokken's where his hut is collapsed and a tree was barring a door into a cellar of some sort. They move the tree and rescue Bokken and the other NPCs.
After all this, they decided it was time to take care of this Stag Lord.
I had a seven character party at the time. The ranger and rogue decided to loop around to the back of the fort since it wasn't guarded too well. They even managed to spot the trap door at the back of the fort. They started to make their way up to the palisade to investigate when the zombies attacked. The two of them managed to get away without being spotted.
The next day, they decided to take the tricky approach and show up as bandits. Well, one of the players is playing an Animus from one of the 3PP books and has a bear head, so they make him stay in the woods 300 feet from the entrance. They gain entry to the fort and begin moving into position. My group is about as subtle as a tarrasque, so they almost immediately open fire and begin taking out bandits. Once the Animus druid is in, the rogue jury rigs the gate so it can't be opened; it's a fight to the death. The alarm is raised and Akiros and Dovan begin fighting the PCs with the bandits. Dovan opens the gate to let the owlbear out and calls for Auchs to get down here. With all the ruckus, the Stag Lord finally makes his entrance, totally sober because the PCs drank all his booze. He steps out with his bow, spots the Animus Druid who is fighting the owlbear and uses insightful strike to sneak attack, nearly taking the druid down in one shot. The battle basically turned into a huge smorgasborg with every bandit in the fort on the field against my seven PCs (and one animal companion). Auchs took a burning hands from the party witch who then began slumbering things. Akiros turns sides and helps the ranger flank Dovan. They cornered the Stag Lord back into his room where he fights to the death.
Akiros is the only one who survived of the bandits. My party took the charter rather seriously with regards to the unrepentant bandits shall be punished with the rope or the sword.
It was a pretty epic fight with lots of close calls. I didn't have any deaths in Stolen Lands. The party was smart enough to not go chasing the one will o'wisp I rolled on the random encounter table.
Rivers Run Red was totally different. Had two PC deaths in that book.
Yar!
My group (of which I'm a player in) took out the Staglord quite a while ago, so I may be a bit fuzzy on some of the details, but here goes anyways...
Our group at the time comprised of:
LoTae Zhao (Female Elf Weapon Master)
Juth'n'dral (Male Half-Elf Druid)
Maldock Cremshear (Male Half-Orc Two-Weapon Fighter)
Jonas Fletcher (Male Human Archer)
Sylus Deckland (Male Human Scout)
We decided to make our assault under cover of night. Our grand plan involved diverting the bandits attention to the front gate with guile and fire while the bulk of us would use the river to get close without being detected and sneak in from the south, figure out who the leader was take him out quickly in order to demoralize any survivors.
Sylus had recently come across a hat of disguise, so he walked right up to the front gate disguised as a bandit from Kressles camp. Meanwhile, Juth was in Hawk form as our eyes in the sky, grasping a vial of alchemist fire in his talons incase we needed a more drastic distraction at the front. The rest of us spent the last few hours in a raft making our way up river and into position to sneak in.
We got the signal that the distraction has begun, and started to jog towards the rear of the fort when the zombies burst from the ground.
Meanwhile, Sylus was yelling at the guards about a group of mercenaries that were hunting bandits, he being the sole survivor of Kressles company (and had the stolen gear to prove it), and that he needed in to give the details.
The group at the back decided that the zombies can be dealt with after the bandits, and ran past. Unfortunately, although LoTae and Maldock made it past the zombies and to the wall, grappling hooks in hand ready to scale the wall, Jonas did not. One of the zombies poked Jonas in the back of the head, hitting a pressure point that caused Jonas to stop dead in his track and fall flat on his face like a knocked over plank of wood (critical hit with the deck, did only 1 point of damage, but stunned and knocked him prone).
LoTae and Maldock shares a glance to each other of "oh f___", and without words decided that Maldock would go back to save their companion while LoTae would scale the wall and set up a quick climb for Maldock and Jonas when they returned.
Juth in the sky, seeing the assault faltering, decided to unleash some panic on the bandits via fire on the front gate, to keep them distracted and oblivious of the chaos ensuing in the back. He flew down and unleashed the Alchemists fire on the front gate, and rolled a crit on the door. Looking at the crit deck and its effects, we decided that Alchemists fire was most like a magical effect... which caused the fire bomb on the front gate to explode with such force that it caused a tear in the fabric of reality, causing a gate to form to another plane of existence!
Sylus' response was a shocked "OH. MY. GAWD. What the hell is going on here! Your gate is messed up!" The gates were partially opened to allow him entrance, and he spent the next while doing everything he could to help the bandits deal with the fire and the sudden extraplanar rift that is now plaguing the fort, yelling shocked obscenities the whole time (both to play up the 'disaster, and to keep a sound-cover for the force he knew should be entering from the south at this point in time), and managed to keep the bandits well distracted (and prevented any extraplanar creatures from entering this world).
We were, however, not even close to overcoming the south wall just yet. Maldock rushed into the swarm of zombies to recover Jonas, when he too got sucker-punched by a zombie. This time, the crit made Maldock sick, making him vomit and stagger about in the midst of the zombies like a drunken fool. LoTae, watching all of this from on top the southern wall with a makeshift rope ladder for the two to climb when they got away from the zombies, simply shook her head. Instead of jumping down to help, LoTae simply whisper-yelled at them to "stop fooling around and get up here already!"
Finally, thanks to using Hero Points, the south wall group managed to escape from the monk-like-zombies and scale the wall. Sylus was putting on a rather spectacular show of yelling and running around the front gate, making sure every bandit knew about the front gate being both on fire and being a gate to another worlds instead of just outside, and screaming at the skied about some freakish Hawk that is dropping doom upon them.
Juth in hawk form, took a long route to circle back to the south end in order to not be the target of a forts worth of bandit arrows, met up with the south-wall group and transformed back to Half-Elf form just as they heard someone from inside the nearest structure give someone a command to deal with the commotion at the front gate. We watched in silence as a well armored figure left the structure and made his way to the gate. Figuring that the one inside giving the orders was the head-honcho, Jonas ran to an opposing building to provide cover fire, while LoTae and Maldock drank from potions of Bulls Strength, and Juth blessed us with Enlarge Persons.
At the front, Sylus got a glance of a bandit with much better gear on walking towards him, oblivious of the giant sized Maldock and LoTae rushing into the building he just came from, weapons drawn, and Jonas across the way, aiming his bow at on the bandit guards in one of the towers (that has started to burn as well... that alchemists fire really spread!). Seeing that the action was finally starting, Sylus looked directly at this new warrior, gave a top of the lungs yell "YOU'RE UNDER ATTACK!!!" while simultaneously dropping his disguise, charging, and attacking the armored man.
Jonas started downing guards with his arrows, and Juth made sure that any who were not arrowed were wet on fire with some flaming spheres. Akiros at this point in time was calmly walking up behind Sylus, keeping a lucky position on the ground that prevented line of sight with Juth or Jonas. Sylus gave a panicked look back at Akiros while he traded blades with the new warrior, but Akiros simply gave a neutral wave of his hand, motioning to "go ahead" while saying that "I have no love for these men. In fact, I'l like to see how this plays out."
Akiros spent the rest of the assault simply watching the two sides fight.
Inside the building to the south, LoTae and Maldock found the Staglord. He looked like he just finished arming himself and was about to come out and deal with the disturbance himself. Without wasting a breath, Maldock cornered him and unleashed a whirling aldouri assault. LoTae stepped in to prevent an easy escape, and Juth, happy with the chaos he caused outside, slipped in as well to set a Flaming Sphere upon the Staglord as well.
And like a freakin' ninja, the Staglord parried half of Maldocks blows, leaped around the ball of fire, and bolted for the door. All three of us swung at him as he ran by, and all of us struck air.
And so, the chase around the camp began. Although the Staglord blocked half of Maldocks strikes, the ones that did hit, hit hard. Juth, being the wise one, decided to step aside and let the two giant warriors take on this foe, electing to follow behind and heal if needed. LoTae and Maldock ran out to give chase.
The Staglord eventually got out of sight and ran up to the rooftops, fire and steel still clashing and crackling on the grounds below. Sylus and Jonas were doing a good job of keeping the other bandits busy while Akiros watched. Jonas saw the Staglord go up, and yelled the route to LoTae and Maldock. They ran up to give chase, but the Staglord was waiting in ambush. Maldock got up there first, and was quickly hamstringed by a lightning quick blade. Falling, but not dead, Maldock watched the Staglord start to run away again. Fortunately, Juth was not to far away and starting to unleash his healing magic. LoTae ran past Maldock and screamed a challenge to the Staglord. But instead of starting a duel, LoTae simply charged. She took a few painful arrow hits, but managed to cut the Staglord down.
LoTae then cut off his head, and holding it up Conan style yelled to the surviving bandits below "Your leader is dead!" and then threw the severed head down to the ground below. Of course, all of this took so long that only two bandits plus Akiros were left. This declamation from above caused them to be distracted enough to let Sylus and Jonas finish them off.
And Akiros clapped.
(Later, the owlbear was befriended by Juth and then freed. Akiros joined our ranks and is now our Warden, and the crazy man in the basement was deemed harmless and sent away to Brevoy so that they could deal with him).
~P
Our Party Killed the Stag Lord the month the AP came out.
But here is how it went:
Party:
Half-orc Monk/Cleric
Elf diviner (and archer due to high dex)
Human Barbarian
Human Paladin
Half-Elf Rogue.
The party infiltrates the fort under the disguise of bandits.
The party was 'almost caught' trying to poison the fort's water supply by a guard, whom we killed and stashed in the well, until we could toss him over the wall.
We figured we didn't have much time, so we spread out, using bluff we acted like we were just wandering about, archer led off by hitting guards on the walls, and the monk let out the owl bear to create distraction.
The paladin and the rogue had set up to double team akiros and the barbarian was set up to take out mooks.
The owl bear decides it wants to chase the monk and the near by barbarian, both who run a little faster than it.
So they kite the owl bear directly INTO the Stag lords tent while the rest of the party is killing off mooks. The paladin and the rogue discover Akiros is in no hurry to get outside to see what is happening as he is leisurely putting on his armor.
The monk makes a good acrobatics check and clears the stag lord like a hurdle, the barbarian however, doesn't leap well and lands in the middle of the stag lord with a resounding ooof!
Barbarian manages to sneak out the back of the tent at the same time the mad owl bear is charging in the front of the tent.
None of us saw the stag lord some out alive.
The Paladin diplomacy'd Akiros and the rogue sneak attacked their rogue for stooopid damage and we spent most of the rest of the fight cleaning up mooks and trying to kill the owl bear.
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My players' PC had previously liberated several bandits from the StaggLord and Kressle's oppressively forced banditry (the story went that the StaggLord habitually took a loved one of each of the bandits and held them hostage within his fort to force his bandits loyalty -- knowing their loved one would be killed if the StaggLord ever learned of the bandit being a coward or traitor). The PCs were able to convice five of them that they would protect the family and vouche for their goodness in face of any judiciary proceedings if they were to ultimately turn on the StaggLord in the moment of truth. One of the bandits who was befriended by the PCs was a ranger with a pet guard dog.
When the PCs came to the fort that night, they had to fight of Auchs, and Dovan immediately. They felled Dovan in the second round, but Auchs was pressing. The other bandits joined the fight against the PC, but were surprised when half their numbers suddenly began to the turn against the others and declare that the StaggLord was insane and they were tired of his tyranny, they begged the other bandits to realize their faulty logic in following the StaggLord and should instead join their effort to finally overthrow their jailer.
The bandits all fought among themselves while the PCs faught Auchs. A'Kiros watched. Kressle and the Stagglord join the fray at that point, but the ranger w/ the dog sicked his dogs on Kressle, which kept her busy.
I made the fight a little more intersting by giving StaggLord a potion of Jump. I saw the illustration of the fort had many causeways and planks that were above the buildings, etc. I designed it even further to have many catwalks etc that moved from a few of the buildings to one of the watchtowers where the archers were (x5). 3 of the PCs went up after the archers and focused on them w/ ranged and spells, while the other three took on Auchs (and Dovan previously).
Meanwhile the StaggLord continued to onslaught the PCs w/ ranged, using his Magical Jumping ability to evade the PCs by jumping from one plank to another, from building top to a high plank to another building top etc, while the PCs had to somehow get to him. That was a lot of fun, and very cinematic, and very frustrating to the PCs cuz they could never quite get to him; as soon as they got close he would leap away to somewhere else - they'd have to climb up to, or go around or down to another level and then back up. Splitting up was their only chance of catching him.
A'kiros finally got involved, and got himself up the StaggLord. I described A'Kiros as being a very intimidating man, and he "forced" two of the archer bandits to "back down" just with his intimidation, removing two foes of the PCs without any bloodshed, then basically assiste the PCs in ganging up on the StaggLord and making him have no where to go. Two of the PCs were unconscious (but stabilized) by this point, and A'Kiros actually struck the final blow - swearing off his villainy, and declaring his dark days over - indicating to the StaggLord that he is repenting and seeking absolution, and with the StaggLords death and end of his reign of terror, perhaps A'Kiros could finally rid himself of some measure of his guilt (foreshadowing to the PCs the backstory of him).
By that point, Kressle used a captured ex-PC as a hostage and collateral for her escape after she killed all the dogs, once she realized that A'Kiros was no longer on her side, and the StaggLord was dead.
The PCs later hired A'Kiros as their Royal Assasin.
The Ranger w/ the dog - an NPC I created named Haasthven became their Councilor.
The other bandits that they befriended and liberated became important editions to their community - except two who were killed by the Ex-PC that was the hostage prisoner Kressle bargained for to escape. The PCs knew she was a were-badger (which isn't part of the book), and to protect themselves they forced the former-companion to allow them to cut him to see if he would have damage reduction (using knowledge checks to know somethings about lyncanthropy). What they didn't count on is that the damage reduction does not apply while in human form. So he passed the test regardless and was allowed to accompany them back to Olegs - they learned later much to their chagrin that this is the way the damage reduction worked, when he turned at some point between the StaggLord's Fort, and Oleg's Camp, and he killed two of the bandits that were in his tent with him - before the PCs were able to slay their former companion.
Robert
Our party whor...er, priestess of Calistria, with her level 2 bluff skill somewhere north of 18 and a diplomacy somewhere in that same region, decided to slink into the fort with nothing but a sultry look and a message spell, courtesy the party wizard.
After the "do" was done, she promptly stabbed the crap out of his drunken, exhausted, and most importantly helpless form.
After that the rest of the party and Akiros cleaned house, sparing only Ox (bug doofy guy with the toys).
hope that PC got some XP for taking one for the team. we pulled off the staglord's helm and stuck a bag on right after. i think my cleric threw up a little when she saw his face.
how does one get a bluff/diplo of over 18 at level 2? i have a dedicated social bard that is level 8 that has diplo 26 with a +5 item synergy with perform oratory, half her level to it as court bard, charisma 22 with the favor of her goddess (also calistria) and full ranks. bluff at full would be only 17 (which it is not).
gotta say i disagree with the stabbing, but, not every cleric is wise enough to prepare hold person in a fight against primarily humans.
My party:
Human Sorcerer
Human Magus
Human True Necromancer
The party had a pretty ingenious plan. They had befriended the Sootscales and decided to present a 1/2 dozen to the Stag Lord as 'slaves'. They also got Bokken to spike the wine with additional poisons.
They bluffed their way into the fort. Even with their abysmal bluff scores, since no one took it as a skill, the only one who realized the PCs were hiding the truth was Akiros. I mean, they were technically in the River Kingdoms, and people there don't abide by slavery. They also misspoke a few facts and the Paly/Barb was the only one who caught on.
He approached them during the night and, after determining what the party was up to, offered to help. During this time, one PC sorta befriended Auchs. When the fight started, Akiros took on the bulk of the regular bandits, the Sorc and Necro dealt with the rest and Dovon, and the Magus, who liked Auchs, took on the big oaf.
That was the best part. I had Auchs yelling at his new 'friend'. "Why you hurt Auchs?" and "You gave Auchs beer. Auchs liked you!" The PC was very dissapointed to kill him.
By the time the Stag Lord showed up, the Kobolds, which had been guarding the Owlbear pen from being opened, attacked and surrounded him. Only Dovon was still up, but he'd been using the other bandits to get flanking on the PCs and lay on the hurt. Akiros was really beat, the Necro and Sorc had a few notable wounds, and the Magus was reaching for his potions.
The kobolds stalled the Stag Lord long enough for Akiros to get to him... and drop after the first round. The Magus reluctantly waded into melee. The mages starte3d pinging away.
By the end, the Magus was under 5hp, Akiros was stable at -4, only Chief Sootscale and one other kobold were alive, the Sorcerer and Necromancer were out of spells. But the PCs won.
Really good fight. Definitely difficult for 3 PCs, even with the plan working perfectly, no owlbear, and Akiros on their side for the onset. Became more of an epic battle instead of just awesome.
My group just finished their first year of building their kingdom and are doing excellent (New Vassals and exploding d6's equated an extra 35 BP the fourth month). We start RRR in a week or two.
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I've been pointedly ignoring the KM forums until my group got through adventure #1. At this point, I think it would be fun to share how we took down the Stag Lord.
Party (all level 4 at the time of the raid) consisted of:
Caius -LN Human Conjuror and his compsognathus familiar
Elesius -NG Bard/Cleric of the Orlovsky family
Thrumblewary Q. Zinglefubble -CN or CG Gnome Sorcerer
The Wanderer - CG Suli Fighter (finesse type)
Grimwulf Koslovski -NG Half Orc Ranger (switch hitter) and his wolf (me)
We had managed to capture several bandits in our explorations across The Stolen Lands, and were able to extract some very useful information about The Stag Lord's keep (passwords, a few names, general info about the gang), so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect when we got there.
The plan was pretty simple. We used a captured covered wagon and drove up to the front gates. The Wanderer, who is our bluff guy, got us past the guards while the wizard maintained a silent image of the wagon being full of goods, instead of large men with swords. Basically a Taldan Horse.
When we finally sprung the ambush, the ranger rapid shot the bandit goons down to nothing in a few rounds while the arcanists controlled the battlefield with grease and create pit.
We were not expecting an owlbear (!), but it spent most of its time scrabbling to get out of a pit filled with the fallen paladin and goons (all were set on fire thanks to flasks of oil and alchemists fire). By the time the pit spell ended, all of the goons and lesser named bandits were dead or subdued (we had to take one guy alive), and the gnome dropped the badly wounded owlbear with an acid arrow. The DM also admitted to boosting the number of goons to account for our higher numbers and level, so we had a lot to do! :)
The Stag Lord was a lot shootier than we thought and he did some serious harm to us before we got to grips with him. Big hits with power attacking switch hitter and finished off by a small earth elemental. The druid in the basement died before he could act (rapid shot is my friend).
If it had not been for the excellent battlefield control from the casters (to whom I tip my new antler-crown), the fight would not have been so successful. Still a very hard fight with a very exciting final duel with The Stag Lord.
My Stag Lord went down like a chump. Among the very sad blunders during that fight were losing initiative, failing the save against Glitterdust over and over again, and failing two consecutive Acrobatics rolls against one character when he was explicitly ignoring the rest of them (so the DC didn't ramp up), ultimately falling prone.
Cornered, blind, and lowish on health he decided to use his insightful shot as a last gasp against one of the characters in melee. He should have been able to take the AoOs, but one lucky high-damage critical among them took him from positive hitpoints and blew straight through his Diehard.
and failing two consecutive Acrobatics rolls against one character when he was explicitly ignoring the rest of them (so the DC didn't ramp up), ultimately falling prone.
...Wow, you must have been rolling low. Stag Lord has some pretty high Acrobatics. To the point where when I rolled his first Acrobatics check to avoid some AoOs, I saw the result, blinked, and looked up, flatly asking my players "Er... are any of your CMDs in the 30s?"
Cornered, blind, and lowish on health he decided to use his insightful shot as a last gasp against one of the characters
See this was your problem. The Stag Lord's first move should be to use his insightful shot, against the party's healer if he can see him.
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and failing two consecutive Acrobatics rolls against one character when he was explicitly ignoring the rest of them (so the DC didn't ramp up), ultimately falling prone....Wow, you must have been rolling low. Stag Lord has some pretty high Acrobatics. To the point where when I rolled his first Acrobatics check to avoid some AoOs, I saw the result, blinked, and looked up, flatly asking my players "Er... are any of your CMDs in the 30s?"
Cornered, blind, and lowish on health he decided to use his insightful shot as a last gasp against one of the charactersSee this was your problem. The Stag Lord's first move should be to use his insightful shot, against the party's healer if he can see him.
Absolutely! Not only that - but it also shocks the hell out of the party when that first bout of damage hits, and they wonder what is going on.....really makes em unsure if they want to press the issue...not knowing he can't do that again!! LOL
Robert
The second time I ran the Stag Lord (just last Saturday, actually), he stumbled out of his rooms just after the party had killed Beaky, looked around, muttered to Akiros to join the fray, and then insightful shot the paladin (the only human target he could see). I believe, on 1d8+3d6, I rolled an 8, 6, 6, 4. I then looked at the paladin, told him the total, and he said "Yeah... I'm dead. Dead-dead. That's way in the negatives."
We let a moment of silence pass, and then a moment later, as I was trying to think of something for the cleric to do, one of my players asked me what buffs the cleric had going for him. So I said "Well, he's got bull's strength, shield of faith, and he had cast shield other on the paladin be... Er..." ::turns to paladin:: "...so, right, you're not dead, then."
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I've been pointedly ignoring the KM forums until my group got through adventure #1. At this point, I think it would be fun to share how we took down the Stag Lord.
Party (all level 4 at the time of the raid) consisted of:
Caius -LN Human Conjuror and his compsognathus familiar
Elesius -NG Bard/Cleric of the Orlovsky family
Thrumblewary Q. Zinglefubble -CN or CG Gnome Sorcerer
The Wanderer - CG Suli Fighter (finesse type)
Grimwulf Koslovski -NG Half Orc Ranger (switch hitter) and his wolf (me)We had managed to capture several bandits in our explorations across The Stolen Lands, and were able to extract some very useful information about The Stag Lord's keep (passwords, a few names, general info about the gang), so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect when we got there.
The plan was pretty simple. We used a captured covered wagon and drove up to the front gates. The Wanderer, who is our bluff guy, got us past the guards while the wizard maintained a silent image of the wagon being full of goods, instead of large men with swords. Basically a Taldan Horse.
When we finally sprung the ambush, the ranger rapid shot the bandit goons down to nothing in a few rounds while the arcanists controlled the battlefield with grease and create pit.
We were not expecting an owlbear (!), but it spent most of its time scrabbling to get out of a pit filled with the fallen paladin and goons (all were set on fire thanks to flasks of oil and alchemists fire). By the time the pit spell ended, all of the goons and lesser named bandits were dead or subdued (we had to take one guy alive), and the gnome dropped the badly wounded owlbear with an acid arrow. The DM also admitted to boosting the number of goons to account for our higher numbers and level, so we had a lot to do! :)
The Stag Lord was a lot shootier than we thought and he did some serious harm to us before we got to grips with him. Big hits with power attacking switch hitter and finished off by a small earth elemental. The druid in the basement died...
Actually it was the summoned dog :) The elemental was too sloooow getting its but over from finishing off the fallen paladin-barbarian
I didn't have a choice there that I knew of. The players were aware that the Stag Lord was coming and most of them won initiative.
By the time he could have declared an Insightful Shot, he was already blind and there was a 50/50 chance his big-bang would be a dud. I tried waiting it out until he wasn't blind and the dice didn't play out.
only Chief Sootscale and one other kobold were alive
I really wish my GM allowed me to do that.
I said that because I have a manipulating, tactical Cleric of Charm and Nobility, after I made an alliance with the Kobolds I wanted them to aid us in battle during the fight with the Stag Lord and he said no, because they're Kobolds. They won't fight.
I was like whaaaaa? What was the point in allying with them then and he just said they are all miners, so you can get resources or something.
Hmm, anyway I just played tonight and we ended with the Stag Lord turning up after we defeated the hooded Rogue (guessing it's Dovan.....who hopefully hasn't been renamed from Falgrim Sneeg, otherwise that quest has failed and my guy called Akiros Falgrim when he met him, thinking he was - oops!), the guards around him (I told one to murder his ally, which he did with one attack...thanks to a crit.....and the other to fall on the floor, where the Fighter finished him off on the ground), the two guards at the top and the Owlbear.
Auchs is currently on our side, thanks to the Sorcerer Summoner's +15 in Diplomacy (as opposed to my +10) and Akiros has disappeared.
Most of us are all out of spells.
I'm out of my Charm person, Command, Murderous Command, Hold Person and Channels (with only 1x Murderous Command and Enthrall left). I do however have my Crossbow, but maybe I can attempt to Enthrall the Stag Lord to make him friendly by speaking and suggest in my spell that everyone should have a drinking competition.......then when he passes out, coup de grace him!
The party didn't listen to my plan of Charming a lone Bandit to coup de grace the Stag Lord in his sleep, so practically everyone but myself and the Fighter are all in incredible danger after their decision to attack head on. ¬_¬
Ah well, Enthrall may be my best bet.
Note: Our party knows of the Stag Lord, knows where his quarters are and have defeated seemingly all of his Lieutenants (bar Auchs), so I posted this here as it hasn't spoiled anything that I didn't already know. :p
I'll post how this goes down after our next session on Thursday. ;)
The party consists of:
Charm Cleric of his own ideals - Lelouch Orlovsky (modelled after Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass)
Half-Orc Sword and Shield Fighter - Galgo
Sorcerer Summoner, follows Erastil - Kieana
Cleric of Erastil - Diago
Druid with an armoured Wolf companion - Kilik
My PCs stormed the fort at third level. I posted the details in another thread about the Stag Lord's fort but the short of it was using a DC 16 hold person on the Stag Lord against his awesome Will save of +1. Unfortunately, it was a night where the dice were really hot for my players and not me so I didn't hit that 25% chance of breaking free he had.
Later, in a solo adventure, the group's halfling fighter was accompanying Akiros on a diplomatic mission and they ran across the Stag Lord, but as a revenant (I really wanted to get more use out of my Stag Lord mini!). They, along with Jhod, slew him once again and Akiros found himself brought back from the brink of death into Erastil's good graces.
The Stag Lord's father is still out there, part of a slowly growing Team Evil (including Riggs the Quickling and Donovan) that may perhaps encounter the party one day.
Party: 3rd level consisting of a
Human Cavalier
Human Rouge
Half-Elf Witch
Half-Elf Summoner
Elf Ranger
Half-Orc Barbarian
and two level 1 Fighters snagged from Kesten's mercs, plus Jhod hanging back away from the fight to give healing after everything is over.
The party spent three or so days scouting out the Stag Fort, watching it at night and day to get a pattern on the guards.
Eventually we decide to strike at the Eastern wall, with our three sneaky guys (The witch, rouge, and ranger) going to scale the wall kill a guard or two and open the gate for the rest of the party to rush in.
Well, as everyone's going up the hill. Bam. Zombies. So we decide to abort, luckily the guard on duty doesn't think much of the zombies coming up and ignores it.
So the party decides they need to find a way to sneak up the ramp to the Fort without being detected. The Cavalier comes up with the idea to have Jhod cast 'Create Water' over the torches in front to put them out. The Ranger then suggests the group keep dousing their torches every night randomly to get them lax about relighting them.
Eventually, after a few days of convincing the bandits they've got faulty torches, the party gets ready to attack.
Witch, Ranger, and Rouge run up to the gate, witch slumbers the guards while Rouge and Ranger climb up onto the towers to tie up the bandits. Someone eventually comes out to light the torches, he gets sleeped, and the gate is left open. Ranger ends up getting separated and shoots Sneede in the back, killing him. Rouge and Witch walk in and sleep a few more people before Dovan notices the gate has been left over. He and another guy are about to go out to investigate when Witch sleeps dovan and shouts to the rest of the party.
Everyone comes barreling in. Dovan is instakilled by the Cavalier and the Eidilon charging him. Akiros tries to open the gate to let Beaky the owlbear out, but the Summoner casts Grease on the gate wheel, causing Akiros to lose his grip and slamming the gate back down. Witch casts sleep on Auchs, and Rouge then goes over to Coup de Grace him.
So, both minibosses killed without effort, Akiros spends 2 rounds failing reflex saves trying to open the gate while the Barbarian beats him up, eventually he changes sides (no idea why the DM decided to wait that long). The Cavalier's mount bullrushes the table in the fort and throws two mooks against the wall.
Eventually the Stag Lord comes out just as we've finished mopping up. He takes a shot at the Cavalier and almost drops him. Eidolon tries to intervene. Next round the Witch gets dropped and almost killed. Eventually the Barbarian and Cavalier surround and subdue the Stag Lord.
After sorting everything out at the keep, the party decides to take all the surviving bandits to Nettles and they throw them all off the cliff. Except for Akiros, who they spared.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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The group I GM for decided that frontal assault would be the best option. They used a modified skyrocket, which they aimed at one of the towers after allowing a few bandits to gather there to take shots at them. They scored a confirmed critical hit and drew the one card from the critical hit deck that I would have allowed for the attack. It blew up the tower, instantly killed two bandits and two horses, as well as setting the front of the fort on fire. They didn't really succeed at breaking into the fort though, and took some damage from angry bandits shooting at them.
One of the players used a plot twist card to instantly find the trap door and they all used it to infiltrate the fort. There was a little bit of sneaking around until the big cleric in armor was spotted. Combat started, the owlbear was released, and the Stag Lord hid until he could take a good shot. He ended up killing the cleric with a single hit, who then played his plot twist card to stabilize at one point before death. The fight took a heavy tole on the party and they ended having to fight the Stag Lord in the walk ways with Dovan and Auchs. He one shot another PC before dropping all but the parties witch. She then used Hold Person and he failed his save. Akiros finished him off with a coup de grace.
The cast
- Human Wizard (Enchanter)
- Human Wizard (Evoker)
- Human Cleric (Erastil)
- Elven Oracle (Battle)
- Elven Druid
We went around the back during the night and triggered the shrieking zombies. The Enchanter cast sleep on the lone guard who was watching our direction, but not before the guard called out to his friend. The Druid than ran up and hid flush against the wall while her tiger killed the zombies. The Battle Oracle and Cleric beat at the zombies while the Wizard used Fire Breath twice before falling unconscious. The Druid cast warp wood on the palisade.
A guard came to see what was going on and saw his comrade asleep. He woke his comrade up, watched the fight for a bit (they briefly saw a mountain lion but the night sky was keeping the rest of us hidden). I cast sleep on the same guard and then we all ran up to the wall.
We broke in and the Cleric and Oracle went to go fight the two guards on watch. The Enchanter Wizard peered through an open gate and saw a big bad guy and a few other people. Not wanting to get attacked from the rear he cast web into the complex, isolating the Staglord (by accident) and entangling a big guy. The Staglord got up, got his bow and then tried to hit the Enchanter's flat-footed AC. He missed.
We fought off the mooks while the Staglord slowly made his way out of the webbing. The other guy near the Staglord came out and suddenly Akiros turned on the bandits and started fighting the big guy. We quickly dispatched the rest (enchanter throwing putting hideous laughter on the mentally handicapped fighter, glitterdusting Dovan).
Before Dovan was glitterdusted he released the Owlbear just in time for the Staglord to get out of the webbing. The Owlbear fought the Staglord until the Staglord retreated (having burnt away a substantial portion of the webbing), so we killed the owlbear rather quickly. We then killed the Staglord with the NPC barbarian helping us quite a bit. We wanted to keep the Staglord alive so it was quite difficult for us to achieve this. Thankfully we managed, but only by the person dealing the final blow getting an assist from the Enchanter who had a longspear (-6 to the attack roll due to cover) and a guidance from the Druid.
At this point the Evoker Wizard's player turned up. We got to Nestle's Crossing and hand over the Staglord, alive. The zombie eviscerates the staglord's body. The Enchanter felt himself move a step away from NG and felt a bit bad over the whole ordeal.
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Unlike other groups we were unable to use the "Hatchet Woman" (as she'll be known in our campaign) because we beat her in initiative, critted her and then killed her with 1 more hit. We did hear though, that she did unspeakable things with those hatchets.
Well unless your GM made some modifications to make it tougher, your party was one level too high for the fight...
Unfortunately so was ours. That said, we initiated every single combat at once (with the exception of the zombies). Thus far team caster has done rather well (everyone wanted to play a caster once we learned the AP goes to level 17).
The Stag Lord's first move should be to use his insightful shot, against the party's healer if he can see him.
Pfft. That insightful shot ability is completely overrated. He missed a Wizard with Dex 12 (but Charisma 14 :D) who only had mage armour running (no shield due to banning abjuration). If he can't get a Wizard with that shot, he's got no hope on anyone else!
(FYI: He missed by 1 point! And only because the webbing provided me with cover! And the GM rolled a 3! I was on 10 HP, I would have just died if he hit)
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The cast
- Human Wizard (Enchanter)
- Human Wizard (Evoker)
- Human Cleric (Erastil)
- Elven Oracle (Battle)
- Elven Druid
We went around the back during the night and triggered the shrieking zombies. The Enchanter cast sleep on the lone guard who was watching our direction, but not before the guard called out to his friend. The Druid than ran up and hid flush against the wall while her tiger killed the zombies. The Battle Oracle and Cleric beat at the zombies while the Wizard used Fire Breath twice before falling unconscious. The Druid cast warp wood on the palisade.
A guard came to see what was going on and saw his comrade asleep. He woke his comrade up, watched the fight for a bit (they briefly saw a mountain lion but the night sky was keeping the rest of us hidden). I cast sleep on the same guard and then we all ran up to the wall.
We broke in and the Cleric and Oracle went to go fight the two guards on watch. The Enchanter Wizard peered through an open gate and saw a big bad guy and a few other people. Not wanting to get attacked from the rear he cast web into the complex, isolating the Staglord (by accident) and entangling a big guy. The Staglord got up, got his bow and then tried to hit the Enchanter's flat-footed AC. He missed.
We fought off the mooks while the Staglord slowly made his way out of the webbing. The other guy near the Staglord came out and suddenly Akiros turned on the bandits and started fighting the big guy. We quickly dispatched the rest (enchanter throwing putting hideous laughter on the mentally handicapped fighter, glitterdusting Dovan).
Before Dovan was glitterdusted he released the Owlbear just in time for the Staglord to get out of the webbing. The Owlbear fought the Staglord until the Staglord retreated (having burnt away a substantial portion of the webbing), so we killed the owlbear rather quickly. We then killed the Staglord with the NPC barbarian helping us quite a bit. We wanted to keep the Staglord alive so it was quite difficult for us...
Sometimes those are the rolls. Sometimes the baddies crit like crazy.
In my campaign we had:
Heavens Oracle (with moonlight bridge revelation)
Cavalier
Alchemist
Inquisitor
Wizard
Rogue
This is running the 6-player conversion. They decide to approach the fortress through the haunted hillside, and use the Oracle's Moonlight bridge to get over the palisade. Of course, the zombies come up and start to alert some of the guards in the watchtowers, who come out and start taking potshots at the PCs. All the PCs decide to kill zombies except for the Alchemist, who is chucking bombs up to kill the guards raining arrows on them.
Eventually they clear the zombies and go across their bridge into the fortress. they are at the back of the fort, and decide to go down the back and try to bash into the fortress wood walls (next to where the Stag Lord is sleeping!) Long story short, they basically aggro the whole fort at the same time. The Stag Lord runs over to the front gate while the PCs finish busting in the wall. Once inside, the Oracle casts Obscuring mist, which hides everyone in the room.
The cavalier decides to step forward in front of the Owlbear cage to "tank". I have the Stag Lord come in and use his Helm's ability to get past the fog and Sneak Attack the cavalier in the face. Almost drops him in one shot (remember this is 6 player version). All the players start freaking out as the cavalier almost dropped in one hit. Here is where I goofed up. The bandits were "winning" and I still decided to release Beaky the owlbear. After it was out of its cage, the closest enemies were the bandits themselves (as all the PCs were hiding in the obscuring mist).
Akiros joined the fight and basically "led" the Owlbear away from the PCs. The Stag Lord started to go around the building to find the PCs. Eventually, they came out with a clever plan: wait until the stag lord was up in the walkways, and our Inquisitor who had "Enlarge Person" would THROW our oracle (a halfling) up into the walkway, and use his Color Spray (which hits high HD creatures due to the heavens oracle abilities). They did, and the Stag Lord failed his save, which basically meant death for him. I could have fudged the Stag Lord's Will save, but they had a clever plan so I let it be as it fell.
In my Campaign I have at this moment:
Sebrahn - Tiefling Bard
Jack - Drow Rogue
Ivorthalion - Elf Ranger
Shivra - Drow Cleric of Sarenrae
All Characters were Level 1 at this point of the campaign.
After defending Olegs trading post against those nasty bandits and capturing Happs Bydon, my mary little band of heroes cleared the Thorn River camp and killed Kressle.
After this deed was done, they decided to end the banit threat for good because you can't really enjoy exploring a country while savage bandits hide behind every tree. Through interogating the survivors, my heroes learned about the (not very precise) location of the Stag Lords fort and marched to scout it and eventually hit it ...
They marched hard towards south and five to six days and some very interesting fey encounters (including an army of spear wielding potatoes *thanks to the user with this idea ^^*) they arrived at the fort.
With some help from the now befriended fey and some scouting by Jack the Rogue and Ivorthalion the Ranger, they decided to sneak in from behind, because an all out frontal assault was out of question and they had no booze or disguises to bluff their way in.
My players crawled up the hill only to be ambushed by the Zombies which were a really nasty surprise. But thanks to the clerics channelling they managed to repell the first two waves. At this point the guards were on alert and my players hid inside some bushes etc. and thanks to their really good rolls (I think the lowest roll was a 21), they succeded in hiding from the third wave of zombies and the badit guards (who thought it is just another Kobolt who got ripped apart)... well and because the enemies rolled badly.
They entered the fort via the hidden passageway and snuk into the Stag Lords room, where Sebrahn the Bard shove his sword into the sleeping Stag Lords black heart, only to be grabbed by the villain and to be forced to look into his dying, angry and vengeful eyes (it was not very pleasant for our bard, especially because the cleric did not really approve to the whole sword into the heart thingie and because Sebrahn is very supersticious and now thinks he is cursed ... and perhabs he is *GM grins very evil* ... and yes i know drow and stuff, but there's some backstory why she is cleric of Sarenrae and why she and the Rogue aren't evil as hell, but that's an other story).
While the Stag Lord met his end, Jack the Rogue moved silently into the yard and tried to release the Owlbear, only to be caught by Akiros. Because of his own talkative abilities and Akiros ability to realise this is the moment to act the two agreed on a truce and released the beast ... and got lucky not to be the first target of little Beaky.
And thus hilarity ensued ... and by this I mean claws and carnage.
The bandits in the yard were sleeping and stood not a chance. Dovan hold quite well, but got grappled and mangled by the Owlbear. Some of the bandits run over from their camp nearby to fight the beast or shoot it from the top with arrows but were ripped to shreds. Only Auchs could stand against it, but in the end fell too. With the majority of their comrades transformed into the yards new paintjob the bandits run away into the night, never to be seen again (.. or perhabs they will be *GM rubbing his hands*).
The band of heroes returned from the secred passage where they hid during the carnage and started to look for survivors. One was Falgrim Sneek who luckily survived, lucky for the characters and not for him because I am sure he has an appointment with an executioner. The other survivor was the Owlbear, which at this point was dying but our ranger saved and befriended it ... well it accepted his help and didn't try to mangle him and considering the fact that thing is an owlbear this must be true love.
After they buried the dead and looked through the bandits loot and treasures my players decided to put some guards on the fort and returned some days later to Olegs to continue their task.
Well, they cleaned the fort on Level 1 ... I let them try and they were lucky. I maybe help a little bit but their success based on their really good dice rolls and some really bad luck on the badits side. But that's life ^^
Staglord died in a really normal fight... despite he NEVER hit anything...
Kressel on the other side... first round: Fighter "Charge, Power Attack - crit - confirmed - Kressel dead"
I didn't post Operation Stag Party here? Huh.
While the staglords goons kept the rest of the party busy the staglord used his helmet to bring the magus down in one turn. Thanks to the summoner swarming the battlefield with sumons the party won and could bring the magus back using alle the staglords trasure and a bit more.
After that we were dead broke and I decided to never ever have one of my PCs brought back unless someone can do it without wasting so much gold.
Reincarnate is cheaper =)
Thanks to the summoner swarming the battlefield with summons..
How? According to this link he could only summon one.
A summoner cannot have more than one summon monster or gate spell active in this way at one time. If this ability is used again, any existing summon monster or gate immediately ends.
Thanks to the summoner swarming the battlefield with summons..How? According to this link he could only summon one.
A summoner cannot have more than one summon monster or gate spell active in this way at one time. If this ability is used again, any existing summon monster or gate immediately ends.
Two ways:
1. Master Summoner removes the limit as long as the Eidolon isn't on the field.2. Summon Monster spells cast by the Summoner - using a spell slot rather than their SLA - do not count against the limit and can be summoned freely.
I guess it was option 1. I don't know the pc but she often has more summons active and the gm is good with the rules, so it has to be legal.
I houseruled the "no limit on summon monster spells" to have only one active at all times.
Don't know how badly this "breaks the game" but my players enjoy it more when everyone rolls about the same amount of dice in a combat scenario.
- Two-weapon fighter (between 1 and 3)
- Druid with boar animal companion (1 and 1)
- Verdant sorcerer who summons puma/cheetah variants. (0(magic missile) and 1-3)
So long as you let anyone who wants to run a Master Summoner that you're pretty much houseruling away their main trick, it's probably cool in advance. Or just outright ban the archetype.
Yeah, they'll get a fair warning. :)
Haven't had those around yet, but I'm sure we could figure something out :)
Thanks to Pennywit for keeping this thread alive. Have enjoyed reading everyone's account of their epic Stag Lord battles.
Two weeks ago, our intrepid band of four fourth-level adventurers boldly stormed the Stag Lord’s fort in broad daylight:
Cast:
-Female elven druid, JANE
-Male human fey-blooded sorcerer, KHRYSTOS
-Male half-orc monk, TAD
-Female human wizard (diviner), VINCZE (played by me)
Background:
Our party didn't need any coaxing to hunt down the Stag Lord because, in our game, the Thorn River camp was formerly inhabited by a tribe of fey-blooded humans that was slaughtered by the Stag Lord and his men. Our sorcerer's backstory is that he is the sole survivor of that tribe. So, he was out for revenge! Another, secondary motivation was that my character was suffering from Nettle's Nightmare/curse (note to self: never talk back to vengeful, undead drowning victims).
From the very beginning, our party gained a reputation throughout the Greenbelt: calling ourselves the "Greenbelt Defenders", we actively hunted bandits, like a team of superheroes. So, when we finally decided it was time to take out the Stag Lord, we figured a full-on frontal assault was our only option, because we thought that if we tried to infiltrate the fort, the bandits would instantly recognize us.
BUT, on an off-game night, I took our DM out for a drink and mentioned our plan for full-on assault. He laughed at me: "You'll all die!" ...SO we promptly changed our plan: we rounded up stag amulets, disguises, and a lot of booze. We questioned visitors to Oleg's Trading Post and learned where the fort was; that there was a wooden palisade around it; and the current password (which, to our great dismay, was "We Bear The Heads of the Greenbelt Defenders!"). We also scribed a bunch of scrolls; bought some potions from Bokken; and even mail-ordered a wand of Cure Light Wounds from Restov. We were ready.
[Note: We toyed with the idea of burning the fort to the ground, and the idea of poisoning the booze, but decided both ideas were ignoble based on our characters' (mostly lawful and good) alignments.]
[Back-up plan: In case we couldn't con our way into the fort, the druid prepared two scrolls of Warp Wood, to bust our way in through the palisade if need be.]
After locating the fort, we spent a night doing reconnaisance: The druid flew around the fort wildshaped as a Great Horned Owl, learning the general floorplan and spotting the trapdoor to the south. Then our monk, cloaked under a Darkness spell, went to investigate the trapdoor. The zombies were a nasty surprise! But he outran them (and the guards on the watchtowers, though they noticed the zombies, never saw the monk because of my Darkness spell). The DM ruled that the zombies gave up chase after the monk left the hillside. So, we successfully avoided both a fight with the zombies and detection by the bandits.
We camped the rest of the night in some woods a few miles to the west. The next day, before we headed to the fort, my character did a Harrow reading, then used her scrolls to buff everyone with Mage Armor and Protection from Arrows. The latter seemed like a good idea; but as it turned out, because of the Stag Lord's magical bow, the DM ruled later that the Protection didn't work against the Stag Lord's arrows. Oh well.
Our party loves its animals (familiars, animal companions and mounts). So, our druid didn't want to leave her battle-trained elk mount out of this battle. At the last minute, she suggested we take her elk in with us, as a tribute to the Stag Lord: "A stag for the Stag Lord", she joked. Which is exactly how we presented the elk to the bandits. What we DIDN'T expect was that the bandits would immediately want to slaughter and butcher it. (UH-OH!). Within minutes of us gaining entry to the fort, one of them announced that's exactly what he was going to do, and led the elk around back by the reins. Our monk lept up and offered to "help" him.
Here's basically what happened after that, and all of our roles in it:
Monk: Threw the first punch, nailing the one bandit before he killed the druid's elk--but not before the bandit shouted and raised the alarm. The monk then tangled with Auchs up on a walkway. After a few rounds (and a few ki points) Auchs fall down, go boom. He later defeated Akiros in a similar fashion. [Note: Akiros didn't turn on the Stag Lord in our game, as he did in most other campaigns.]
Wizard: After Dovan opened its cage half-way, she cast Web to contain the Owlbear, but was unsuccessful. So, she and her Celestial rabbit familiar lured the Owlbear into the courtyard--and then Levitated up a watchtower, out of harm's way. Owlbear proceeded to munch on random bandits in the courtyard for the next few rounds.
Sorcerer: Dispatched a number of random (non-lieutenant) bandits before finally getting sneak-attacked by Dovan and falling. Sorcerer rejoined the battled within two rounds, however, after being mysteriously healed by the monk's pet cat (long story!). Later, he nearly died again after being shot in the back by the Stag Lord while delivering the coup de grace to Dovan. (Our sorcerer seems to have nine lives.)
Druid: Held Akiros at bay with a number of strategic spells until our monk could take over. She also cleverly attempted to warp the Stag Lord's bow with Warp Wood, but failed, since it's a magic bow. Most importantly, however, she used her Wand of Cure Light Wounds frequently, keeping us all alive in lieu of launching attacks. Her wolf animal companion killed Dovan.
The Stag Lord ended up running into the back courtyard, sneaking past the Owlbear, who was there tearing apart the bandits' horses. The rest of us followed, and were immediately set upon by the Owlbear. After nearly being shot out of the sky by the Stag Lord, the Wizard offed the Owlbear with a Shocking Grasp. The entire party then ganged up on the Stag Lord on the walkway above the Storage Room in a final showdown. Although the monk and the wolf were the heaviest hitters, the sorcerer dealt the killing blow--with a Magic Missile, of all things. And so, in the end, the sorcerer avenged his slaughtered Greenbelt tribe--a very satisfying outcome. In a humorous moment, the sorcerer's owl familiar coup de grace'd the villain, ripping his throat out while simultaneously knocking his stag helm off. (We were all were quite shocked by the hideous face behind the mask.).
Coolest moment: When the druid's wolf, outrunning a pack of zombies, Spider-climbed over the wooden palisade to join the battle in the courtyard below.
MVP award: the Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Runner-up: the Owlbear (for killing most of the low-level bandits).
Follow-up:
After killing the Stag Lord, the party went downstairs to confront the creepy old man in the basement. All of us were battle-weary at that point, so we agreed to try and spare his life. After succesfully calming him with Diplomacy, telling him we meant no harm, he asked what we had done with his son. We simply replied: "You never have to fear the Stag Lord again. He can't hurt you now. Leave this place. Go in peace." So he scuttled upstairs. When we came up after him, he had left without a trace.
In hindsight, maybe that wasn't the smartest move. Judging from the DM's sly smile and cryptic comments, we may have a recurring villain on our hands. (Oh goodie.)
As the ironmen say, "what thread is dead may never die" lol. At any rate, our party is online and varies as members drop in and out. For our fateful session we had but three players, a merfolk broodmaster summoner (*actually I think he wanted to change to master summoner), a human ranger - specializing in archery of course - and a dhampir sword saint samurai, all level 2 (yes, you read that right). The party had interrogated bandits before ('that thing with the eyelid' if you get the reference) so they knew where the main fort was and bypassed the river camp. The ranger wasn't even there at the beginning of the session, so after parleying with a passing worg during the night the summoner and samurai set out to survey the bandits. Seeing that the fortress was well defended they opted for infiltration and formulated a plan. The summoner used dust of illusion to disguise himself as a bandit and bound the samurai on horseback, using arcane mark to create a fake summoners rune on his forehead. Having procured liquor and the password, (and with a +11 bluff skill) they entered the fort. The summoner proceeded to play cards while he ordered his eidolon using message to signal the samurai to escape. With amazing stealth checks and unperceptive guards the samurai began sneaking around the base, while the ranger showed up and very stealthily climbed over the wall (taking a few large splinters with her). The two scouted the fortress and readied themselves, while the summoner sent poisoned liquor to the stag lord. Unannounced, the samurai pushed a guard off a ledge, killing him but alerting the others. He duelled Auchs alone on the bridge while the ranger fought the outer guards. Seeing his chance Akiros joined the fray and defended the lever to the owlbear pen with a lucky initiative roll. The summoner debuffed the stag lord with dazes and blinding spells for a few rounds while the others laid waste to the fortress. The stag lord woke prematurely however and knocked the summoner to 0hp. The samurai felled Auchs with only 3hp to spare before running down to help Akiros and rout the others. As the two of them finished off the bandits they turned to face the stag lord who was blinded, but still dangerous. Just then the ranger kicked in a back door, flanking th stag lord as Akiros and the samurai rushed in. The stag lord was trapped and tried to maneuver his way out using acrobatics but failed and was seriously wounded - soon to be a fatal error. Seeing this the summoner rose and summoned an eagle atop the stag lord before collapsing into unconsciousness. Out numbered and outgunned the stag lord fell the next turn to the eagle, samurai, and ranger, with Akiros delivering a final, sacrificial blow.